St. Landry democrat., 1887-10-01

| Quit business tomorrow II 1t were no,
| for the wreck and ruin of others. When
| people tell me at what ruinously low
| price they purchased an article, it gives
me more dismay than satisfaction.
| know it means the bankruptcy and de.
| falcation of men in many departments
| The men who toll with the brain need
full as much sympathy as those who toll
with the hand. All business life is struck
through with suspicion, and panics are
only the result of want of confidence.
The pressure to do wrong Is all the
stronger from the fact that in our day
the large business houses are swallowing
up the smaller, the whales dining on blue
fish and minnows. The large houses un.
dersell the small ones because they can
afford it. They can afford to make moth
ing, or actually lose, on some styles OF
goods, assured they can make it up on
others. So, a great dry goods house
goes outside of its regular line and sells
books at cost or less than cost, and that
swamps the booksellers; or the dry goods
house sells bric-a- brac at lowest figure
that swamps the small dealer in bric-a-
brac. And the same thing goes on in
other styles of merchandise, and
the consequence is that all along
the business streets of all our cities
there are merchants of small capt.
tai who are In terrific struggle to keep
their heads above water. The Cunarders
run down the Newfoundland fishing
smacks. This is nothing against the
man who has the big store, for every
man has as large store and as great a
business as he can manage. To feel
right and do right under all this pressure
requires martyr grace, requires divine
support, requires celestial reinforcement.
Yet there are tens Of thousands of such
men getting splendidly through. They
see others going up and themselves going
down, but they keep their patience, and
their courage, and their Christian consis-
tency, and after a while their turn
of success will come. The own
ers of the big business will die
and their boys will get possession of
the business, and with cigar in their
mouth, and full to the chin with the best
liquor, and behind pair of spanking
bays they will pass everything on the
turnpike road to temporal and eternal
perdition Then the business will break
up, and the smaller dealers will have fair
opportunity. Or the spirit of content
ment and right feeling will take posses
sion of the large firm, as recently in the
case of the great house of A. A. Low &
Co., and the firm will say: ave have
enough money for all our needs, and the
needs of our children; now let us dis
solve business and make way for other
men in the same line" Instead of being
startled at a solitary instance of mag
nanimity, as in the case just mentioned,
it will become common thing. l
know of scores of great business houses
that have had their opportunity of vast
accumulation, and who ought to quit.
But perhaps for all the days of this gen.
Grafton the struggle of small houses to
keep alive under the overshadoWing pres
sure of great houses will continue :;
therefore. taking things as they are, you
will be wise to preserve your equilibrium,
and your honesty, and your faith, and
throw over all the counters, and shelves,
and barrels, and hogsheads, and cotton
bales, and rice casks, the measuring line
of divine right. And the Lord said
unto me, Amos, what seest thou =? and
I said, A plumb line"
In the same way we need to measure
our theologies. All sorts of religions are
putting forth their pretensions. Some
have a spiritualstic religion, and their
chief work is with ghosts, and others a
religion of political economy proposing
to put an end to human misery by a new
style of taxation, and there is humani
tartan religion that looks after the body
of men and let's the soul look after itself,
and there is legislative religion that
proposes to rectify all wrongs by enact
ment of better laws, and there is an as
thetic religion that by rules of exquisite
taste would lift the heart out of its de-
formities, and religions of all sorts, re-
ligions by the peck, religions by the
square foot, and religions by the ton-all
of them devices of the devil that would
take the heart away from the only reli-
gion that will ever effect anything for
the human race, and that is the straight
religion written in the
book, which begins with Genesis and
ends with Revelation, the religion of the
skies, the old religion, the God-given
the everlasting religion, which
says: Love God above all and your
neighbor as yourself" All religions
but the one begin at the wrong
end and in the wrong place. The
Bible religion demands that we first
get right with God. 1t begins at the top
and measures down, while the other
religions begin at the bottom and try to
up. They stand at the foot of the
wall, up to their knees in the mud of
human theory and speculation, and have
a plummet and a string tied fast to it.
And they throw the plummet this way,
and break head there, and throw the
plummet another way, and break head
there, and then they throw it up and
it comes down upon their own pate.
Fools! Why will you stand at the foot
Of the wall measuring up, when you
ought to stand at the top measuring
down? A few days ago was in the
country thirsty, after long walk. And
came in, and my child was blowing
and they rolled out
Of the cup-blue, and gold, and
green, and sparkling, and beautiful,
and orbicular, and in so small space
never saw more splendor concentrated.
But she blew once too often and all the
glory vanished into suds. Then turned
and took glass of plain water and was
refreshed. And so far as soul thirst is
I put against all the glowing,
glittering soap-bubbles of worldly re-
form and human speculation one draught
from the fountain from under the throne
Of God, clear as crystal. Glory be to
God for the religion that drops from
no, ,nofh